After a Gas Explosion Destroyed Its Home, a Band Is Helping the East Village Heal

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The band Public Access T.V. — from left, Max Peebles, John Eatherly, Xan Aird and Pete Sustarsic — at the site of their East Village apartment building, which collapsed last year.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

When a gas explosion destroyed the building they lived in, the four members of the band Public Access T.V. were in Los Angeles, on tour. Actually, because of the three-hour time difference and an appearance that had kept them out late the previous night, they were still asleep.

“I woke them up,” said Ben Goldstein, their manager, who also lived in the loftlike apartment at 123 Second Avenue in the East Village. “I was getting texts from back in New York. Then I started getting photos from friends of our building on fire.”

Still not believing what was happening 2,800 miles away on that afternoon in March of last year, they checked a New York cable-news channel online. Two people were killed in the blast and, in all, three buildings were destroyed.

The authorities blamed an illegal gas line installed for the owner of the other buildings, at 119 and 121 Second Avenue. The owner, Maria Hrynenko, and three others were later charged with involuntary manslaughter; a fifth person, a licensed plumber, was charged with selling the use of his credentials.

On Saturday, Public Access T.V. will play a concert on East Seventh Street around the corner from where the building stood. The band — which has an album coming out this month called “Never Enough” on Cinematic — is appearing as part of “Taste of the East Village,” a one-day festival. With tickets at $25 in advance ($30 on Saturday), the festival will benefit the Cooper Square Committee, a nonprofit housing group formed nearly 60 years ago to repel Robert Moses and his designs on the neighborhood. It was the committee that found apartments for the band members to move into.

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Memorials remain at the site, where a gas explosion killed two people.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

One flier promoting the festival carried a subtitle that conveyed a message of closure as far as the explosion went: “The long-awaited East Village comeback.”

“There was a general sense the whole world heard about this explosion,” said Jimmy Carbone, a restaurateur who is a producer of the festival. “People I knew in South Africa, in England, heard about this explosion. And then I think a lot of people thought a lot of us went out of business.”

Unlike the band members, Mr. Carbone was close by — his restaurant, Jimmy’s No. 43, was in a building on East Seventh Street that the three buildings backed up to. “I was as close to it as anyone,” he said. “It was 10 feet from my kitchen. I thought it was a pressure cooker that went off.”

Jimmy’s No. 43 was closed for three weeks. “This building was almost condemned,” Mr. Carbone said, noting that the restaurant is on the ground floor. “I’m where all the water went when the building was hosed down for 24 hours,” he said. “That’s the back story.”

The explosion left a scar on the neighborhood, Mr. Carbone said. “The last thing we needed was an important corner to go up in flames, and be left with a deserted corner,” he said. “It’s like the 1970s again, but we’re not paying 1970s rent.”

The three lots remain empty, surrounded by chain-link fences. The authorities said the defendants had illegally tapped into the gas line from 119 Second Avenue and installed pipes and valves to deliver gas to No. 121. That equipment was not shown to Consolidated Edison inspectors who visited the building shortly before the explosion.

The authorities said two of the defendants reopened the valves from No. 119 to No. 121 shortly before the explosion. They dashed out as the basement filled with gas without alerting tenants in the buildings or the management of a sushi restaurant on the first floor of No. 121.

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Mr. Eatherly and Mr. Aird in Mr. Eatherly’s new apartment in the East Village. Cooper Square Committee, a nonprofit housing group, found apartments for the band members to move into.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

Public Access T.V. had been hailed as “New York’s hottest new band” 14 months earlier. Now the band drove from California in a van, a trip that took five days. “We drove down Second Avenue and actually saw the rubble,” said Xan Aird, the lead guitarist. “The first thing I thought of was Aleppo. That’s what it looked like. It’s not comparable, but it was surreal.”

The apartment had served as living quarters, practice room and, for Mr. Goldstein, office space. “I didn’t think that sort of space existed,” he said. “You hear about bands in Brooklyn that have that, but not in the heart of the East Village.”

The band members crashed on friends’ couches for a few weeks while they lined up dates that kept them on an extended tour.

They walked by the site the other day. There was graffiti on the wall of the building to the north that survived the conflagration.

“I think our door was here,” John Eatherly, the band’s lead singer, said.

He looked down the long, narrow lot. “The back windows of our kitchen looked out back there,” he said.

Mr. Eatherly said he lost his recording equipment, even an analog tape deck. Mr. Aird said he lost a Marantz receiver passed down from his father, who had owned it since he was 13.

“We lost possessions,” Mr. Goldstein said, “but that doesn’t compare to the real tragedy, people losing their lives.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: A Band Helps the East Village Heal After a Devastating Gas Explosion. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe